Modernity Skin Project Worklog for Fusion Brain

I suppose here is as good a place as any to keep track of what I'm doing. So many people on this thread have had great ideas on what to do with this fine product, and I'm hoping to let my skin benefit from all of that, in return I plan to work on this skin with the full intention of making it something everyone could use regardless of vehicle or desired options. Each catagory of use will be an option that can be turned on and off in either a setting page or a 'wizard' - series of pages. I plan to include everything, windows and sunroofs, security system type of stuff (ignition and locks), HVAC, engine and drivetrain, chassis and suspension, pretty much everything, and if I haven't caught something important with those broad strokes just then, it's because I'm a little tired right now. I'm not too far along but I'll post what I have, for feedback and ideas.

I'm no artist and images are hard for me, so if someone want's to jump in and work on this with me, I'm open. I'd be willing to put design decesions to committee, so to speak. I'd like to include images like cutout views and such, it will be fun to use them to navagate with. I've barely begun, here's what I've got so far; introducing modernity:

(Most Recent Screenshot is the top pic, all others are the original progression)

What do you think of my new idea for a format, I think maybe it will blend better with other FE skins:

Uh oh, I'm running out of tabs.
start here...maybe.
Time for the next oil change?
all of the stuff I would rather get from OBD could go here, maybe some cool effeciency and HP equations working behind the scenes.
all the climate controls with a cool graphic(maybe in a seperate A/C performance page.
door open indications, zone alarms,etc. Maybe even a keypad lock.
I'm thinking along with other things you like to see when cruising (in the absense of GPS), a radar detector interface would be good here.

Like I've said, I've never done this before, but there's only one way I know of to learn.

The goal I have in my head is to let the background stay pleasant to look at, but monochromatic enough to let the important stuff pop out, data will have more color. This should cut down on any distraction issues.

Thanks. If there was ever an interesting way for me to dig my heels into this, this is it, it makes all of the boring, tedious work so much more worth it knowing what the result will be. All of my childhood dreams are coming true.

Hey looks like mastero is at it again, developing Aircon 3. Hey says this one will be intended to have full auto climate control capabilities, and is looking for inputs. While I draw together all of the stuff I have for him, it brings me back to the OBD thing I mentioned elsewhere.

In reference to other hardware talking to other software, related to vehicle control/indication, it would be nice to be able to port that info into one interface. Like for Aircon 3, which would drastically cut down on needed fusion outputs/inputs, it would be nice to be able to control it through this software. Just a thought, but I have no idea what's needed either. He's pretty clear about how to use that data in the software.

Alright, I have a rough draft of the security interface graphics for the black screen. Each door is a seperate PNG, partially transparent, I think that might look good for door ajar zone indicators. Like I said I plan to have different ones for sedans, coups, hatchbacks, trucks, SUVs, mopeds, convertibles, and big rigs; but I'm starting with my little crappy commuter truck for now. I'd like to use an alarm triggered output to tell FCC to open the security page.

I dunno, just tooling around, I'm not sure if having to activate your vehicle this way will be too annoying or problematic.

Overall, I'm not too sure how I like the way this looks, but that's my idea for the black screen, a place for messages, data like sensed parameters, etc. I guess I'm not too big on analog dials and stuff, I've spent so much time with them in the past. I'd like to see car info like temps and pressures the way people thought they would see them when the first concept cars started to show. Thus, the the name modernity came about. I want to have a retro/futuristic feel to it, but have it not stand out and be obvious.

If the computer starts when the alarm pops up, then FB could tell FCC to go straight to the alarm screen. The idea here is not to have to listen to chirps or look at the flashing light to determine what went on with the alarm when you were out. Variable resistance controlled fusion, might some day let us tune our shock and prox sensors with this interface.

EDIT: How do I make these overlays flash? Animated drawing or will the animation code in FCC do it for me?

One thing I've been sitting here thinking about here is the need for a balance and ease of use:

Those buttons on the lower left; I assumed would be navigation buttons. If they're on every one of these style of pages, then simple things like locking doors or rolling down windows,etc could possibly require two step operation. One might think, looking at the lock icon on the page, that button locks the doors, like on the default skin - but then, the security page pops up. I don't want things like that to not be intuitive or simple.

I'm going to revisit that thought. Maybe I'll have upside down tabs at the bottom for the pages, and then I'll have some room for some permament function buttons that will carry over many pages in addition to specific functions of that page. Now where's that ironing board?...

I thought some of those things over, I've come to realize I want a bit too much from this interface than is possible right now. I'm going to try to simplify it some, and then learn C#. I think there's so much potential here though. Anyway here's where I am in design so far.
Good thing I can do this without a working brain.
The nav buttons will be like the ones I have at the top, but they will be the tabs below. the buttons up top will be for outputs and functionality either within that page, or throughout all pages. I hope to bring some color to the screen.
As for the graphics on the right, they will sitll highlight and glow as needed. I see entire systems (coolant, ac, brakes, tires, lighting, doors opening and lighting up, electric windows and mirrors, seats, etc.) lighting up (color coded) and glowing a little as they are utilized, or if they trip an alarm of sorts (i.e. car alarm or analog threshold).

So much for retro, I suppose there will be some hint of it to come, but it's taking on a mind of it's own.

Some of the things on the Security page, which I've spent the majority of the graphics work on so far, are going to be hard to read. The engine timer for example is not available in serial form or otherwise, external to the alarm. I don't want to set a seperate timer to run in parallel, it wouldn't be exact enough. So off we'll have to go with the cover and probe around for something to use. Zone triggers can be read by counting different LED pulses, but since I'm going to dig into it... I'm going to go with DEI products to stay as universal as possible. Status is pretty easy. Some things the user will just have to know, like when a zone is disabled temporarily, due to time since arming or remote start use, that zone will glow gray.

I'm thinking about a burned out light indicator. Some autos use the RC time constant change to make the flasher flash differently when lights are open circuited (that's how they fail usually, hopefully). I'm thinking about using an analog channel and a resistive A/D converter to give an indication on the lighting page of blown out lights.

I'm also trying to think of a method of determining when a window is all of the way down and up. One input use is preferred, especially if one input can be multiplexed between different windows.

I've made plans for Engine tuning, Indication, and Control, but I've stayed away from it mostly because I'm stubborn, and I want OBD info.There are programs already for this, but I don't think I'm the only one who would rather have this data imported from it's best source, for use in one single environment. I'm sure something like that will happen though. And while I'm writing Santa, I might as well throw in GPS speed as well.

I've also been dragging my feet with the Climate Control. I wan't to see what Mastero is going to do, having scrapped my own automatic climate control hardware project for now. If his project works as it should, then that would be another good canidate for 2 way communications (I realize OBD is 1 way). We can do it with brains, and it should be just fine... Unless the PC reboots on a 110F day. The Aircon project however, has had the capability to operate independant of the PC, and will probably remain that way.
We'll just have to see. But for now I have some busy-work to do.

One last thing for the ol' wishlist of interconnectability is a method to program the alarm, DEI used to have a serial cable for programming them with a very basic program. But now I think they use the "Bitwriter" exclusively. I might have to check on that. By the way it works, it seems the PC communication would be very simple for someone who's done stuff like that before.

So much for sticking with a theme... I like it though, I guess that means more work on the security and a couple others I've started on. There's some controls That I haven't put in to this one yet, but I kind of ran out of room. The nav buttons are starting to look bad. I'm not sure what it's going to take yet.

Ok here's the idea for the temperture graph display, obviously, the buttons at the left will control the reference temperature in auto or the air mixture control signal directly in manual.

The gaphics will be tied to the control signal. It will be cool to see them (along with the fan) move automatically in auto.

If the AC compressor is engaged, the blue part of the graph will appear, along with the red bar directly under it.
If the compressor is off (vent) then only the red bars will appear, and move across the display.

I'm having a hard time visualizing an instance where only the blue bars appear (except for at the end of travel) based on damper function. But if you llok at most dial controls with red/blue they only overlap for a short span, I might follow suit.

In most designs, air is always flowing over the evaporator, the blend door just controls how much is going across the heater core. But towards the end of travel, the passenger doesn't feel the heat, they just feel less cool (and vice versa). So as the graph gets towards the ends of the display, the opposite (smaller) color could fade earlier.

The reference signal (72F above) will increment 1 degree at a time when the buttons are pushed, until a max or min appears, and for simplicity, the bars will represent about a 2-3 degree increment.

I think a slider is a good idea, an invisible one or the graph itself? Tap where you want and it will send that temp, and adjust its display. The only thing is the 2-3 degree intervals, the up/down buttons could be used to 'fine tune'.

I"ve had local feedback that the nav buttons at the bottm need to change. They don't seem different enough, and have not evolved with the rest of the display. I'm not sure what they really want to look like yet. Maybe more 3d. How about tansparent 3D objects? instead of tabs?

heres my recent efforts to change the nav buttons at the bottom. I'm not sure if it works, I've been staring at it for a while now.
I narrowed that temperature range down to 2F per bar on this one.
The longer graph is more what I had in my head anyway. It forced the flow indicator up, but I think closer to the eye is better for that graphic.
Now I can't get the buttons to look good... I'm going to take a break from designing soon and start the hard part for these two pages. I'm sure I'm going to have a lot of 'how do I's and feature requests shortly thereafter.